Gender-based discrimination Archives - OURs - The Observatory of the Universality of Rights

“UN experts call for resistance as battle over women’s rights intensifies

Women’s rights are facing an alarming backlash in many parts of the world, and it is critically important to press on with further setting of standards on gender equality, a group of UN independent experts has warned.

“The world is at a crossroads, with the very concept of gender equality being increasingly contested in some quarters,” said the experts.

“We feel it is time to reiterate the backlash against the progress which has been made in promoting and protecting women’s human rights. The polarization in the battle for rights is being demonstrated increasingly, and regressive positions have become a serious threat to the human rights legal framework.

“The international community needs to keep moving forward on setting standards on gender equality to counter the alarming trends which are undermining human rights principles and jeopardizing the gains made in women’s rights.”

The experts restate their support for the repeal of all laws that discriminate against women on traditional, cultural or religious grounds and laws that exclusively or disproportionately criminalize action or behaviour by women and girls.

They also stress women’s rights to make decisions about their own bodies, and to receive comprehensive sexuality education so they can enjoy their right to sexual and reproductive health.

“We need more than ever to protect the fundamental principle that all rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated,” the experts said.

“Despite this unbreakable principle, upheld in the 1993 Vienna Declaration on human rights, we are witnessing efforts by fundamentalist groups to undermine the foundation on which the whole human rights system is based. Some of these efforts are based on a misuse of culture, including religion and tradition, or on claims related to State sovereignty.

“Under the disguise of protecting the family, some States are taking initiatives aimed at diluting human rights. We obviously recognise that the family is the fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection, but we insist on the need to re-assert women’s right to equality in all aspects of family life and recognise that diverse forms of families exist.”

The experts stress that discriminatory practices frequently take place within families, where, for example, women and girls may be limited to certain roles, experience harmful practices and patriarchal oppression, and suffer other human rights abuses including domestic violence and sexual abuse.

The experts insist that international human rights bodies need to guard against the backlash being witnessed, to ensure that the human rights legal framework is not undermined.

“In the current context, where women’s rights are being pushed back in all regions of the world, we need to continue denouncing any anti-rights rhetoric and actions which hinder the implementation of human rights standards, in particular regarding gender equality. Without equal rights in the family, gender equality will never be achieved,” the experts conclude.

Read the full statement from OHCHR.

Working Group on DAW commended for resolute voice in times of backlash

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) welcomes the report of the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women on the causes of deprivation of liberty.

We commend the Working Group on its bold and sustained attention to structural forms of discrimination and the impact of interlocking systems of oppression, and for their unflinching focus on patriarchy as underlying cause.

Whether it be:

Women and girls confined to the home or deprived of their rights to free movement and self-determination, justified in the name of ‘complementarity’ or ‘guardianship’;
Women Human Rights Defenders monitored and criminalized for their work challenging fundamentalisms, authoritarianism, and extractivism;
Women who are migrants, indigenous, or racial or religious minorities – and those who are sexual and gender non-conforming – disproportionately targeted for policing and control; or
Deprivation of women and girls’ liberty arising from systems of economic inequality –

Today our fundamental right of bodily autonomy is profoundly threatened, and a fixation on controlling women and girls’ bodies and lives is a common thread amongst the rising far right – a central preoccupation for diverse fundamentalisms, fascisms, white supremacy, corporate power, and neo-colonialism.

We must reject these anti-rights ideologies that promote hate, control and inequality – that instrumentalize culture and religion, appropriate human rights language, and threaten multilateral systems in order to foster impunity and violate rights – and unite to defend gender justice and the core principle of the universality of rights.

Over the past 9 years the pioneering work of the Working Group has been critical to further issues of women’s human rights at the Council and beyond; a resolute and essential voice in this time of backlash. We stress our strong support for the mandate, and call upon States to ensure its renewal and to reaffirm their commitment to cooperate with the Working Group in a united effort to protect, promote and fulfil women’s equality and gender justice.

It is the time for action, to prove our commitment to women and girls’ human rights. There is no excuse for discrimination.

This statement was delivered by the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) at the 41st session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, June 26th 2019.

Despite Progress, Gay & Abortion Rights Face Threats in Latin America

Gillian Kane is a senior policy advisor for Ipas, an international women’s reproductive health and rights organisation.

SUVA, Fiji, Dec 7 2017 (IPS) – Cancun, Mexico, of white sand beaches and spring break-style nightlife, was, this past June, the unusual backdrop for a regional gathering on human rights and democracy.

Tour buses accustomed to ferrying sandal-shod tourists to Mayan ruins, instead, transported well-heeled activists and government representatives from their hotels to the Centro de Convenciones.

Parked a few kilometers away, one bus, neon orange and passenger-less, stood out. The so-called “Freedom Bus” was emblazoned with massive letters; “Leave our children alone!” #dontmesswithourchildren.

It was, according to its organizers, designed to get the attention of delegates attending the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS). They wanted attendees to know they were putting themselves on the line to resist all attempts by permissive governments to indoctrinate their children in the immoral principles of “gender ideology.” They were, they insisted, defending their religious and freedom of speech rights.

Never mind that there is no “gender ideology,” much less governments that are forcing children to learn inappropriate material. This bus is just one of many recent direct-action attempts by right-wing organizations to pedal a falsehood that governments, aided by well-endowed liberal foundations, are out to get your children.

The bus provides the arresting visual, but it’s what takes place inside the conference center that should raise our hackles. The concern for the wellbeing of children is a cover; what these organizations want to do is disable efforts to advance protections and rights for girls, women and LGBTI people.

The movement, which defines itself as in opposition to “gender ideology,” is a response to progress made in the last decade advancing human rights for vulnerable populations.

Meanwhile, the decade has also seen an increase in the organizing power and political influence of conservative evangelical churches, especially in Central America, Mexico, and Brazil.

Latin America is the locus for much of the progress on LGBTI and abortion rights, both at the country and regional level. Same-sex marriages are legal in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay.

And significant advances have been made to increase access to legal abortion in Argentina, Chile, Mexico City, Colombia, Bolivia and Uruguay. At the regional level, the OAS has been a champion for LGBTI rights as early as 2008, when it adopted its first resolution condemning violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

By 2011, the OAS had created a dedicated LGBTI Unit at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The progress did not go unchallenged.

Opponents of sexual and reproductive rights and LGBTI rights in Latin America responded to victories directly, through both legislation and litigation. They also responded in more insidious ways.

Last year, in Brazil, ministries promoting equal rights for women and black communities were downgraded when they were folded into the Ministry of Justice, effectively neutralizing the ability of its leadership to negotiate or move forward any progressive policies.

The deliberate dismantling of government infrastructures that protect human rights is not endemic to Brazil. Indeed, it is a dedicated strategy of anti-rights organizations who are working to both coopt and fragment these spaces.

Read the full article from IPS News

UN experts call for resistance as battle over women’s rights intensifies

“The world is at a crossroads, with the very concept of gender equality being increasingly contested in some quarters,” said the experts.

They also stress women’s rights to make decisions about their own bodies, and to receive comprehensive sexuality education so they can enjoy their right to sexual and reproductive health.

“We need more than ever to protect the fundamental principle that all rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated,” the experts said.

The experts insist that international human rights bodies need to guard against the backlash being witnessed, to ensure that the human rights legal framework is not undermined.

Read the full statement from OHCHR.

HRC 35: Recognizing the critical role of WHRDs to support and implement the SDGs

Women human rights defenders are at the forefront of rights struggles across the breadth of the SDGs and in all human rights arenas. WHRDs are targeted in each area because of our work, including for what we do, the fact that we do it, and the identities we carry.

The Women Human Rights Defender International Coalition has particular intersectional contextual concerns which shape our defense of rights:

Attacks on the entire framework of human rights
Government efforts to limit space for civil society voice and action
Rise in fundamentalisms across all regions and contexts (including those related to religion)
Negative effects of globalisation, and neo-liberal economic ideology, including poverty and inequality
Militarism and the devastating effects of proliferation of arms and defense industries and related spending
Crises of governance and democracy
Patriarchy, heteronormativity and other social norms that limit enjoyment of rights of women, WHRDs and all people.

In terms of SDG 3 and 5, we emphasize the following two main points:

1-WHRDs are involved in defense of rights related to health and are targeted as a result.

Our focus areas include rights to services, to non-discrimination in health services, to reproductive and sexual rights, rights to independent and autonomous decision-making about our bodies and our lives, and we also focus on specific issues such as access to or denial of medical care in detention. WHRDs also promote health-related rights related to ending torture and violence, whether at the hands of state agents such as police, or of family and community members, for which the state can bear responsibility, as well.

2- There is deep impact on the physical and mental health of WHRDs because of threats to and attacks against our work, our bodies and those of our colleagues and families, and even our offices.

This is true particularly for WHRDs who experience violence, torture, psychological harassment and other forms of discrimination and antagonism.

Recognizing the roles of WHRDs is critical to the support of and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. These all must be better documented by the mechanisms of the Council, and by others in the human rights system, including by UN agencies and programs that address human rights defenders.

Would the panel address concrete ideas about the roles of women human rights defenders as they relate to the promotion and protection of the rights and implementation of the SGDs?

Thank you.

Read the full article from AWID.

The World Congress of Families: A prime example of today’s anti-rights lobby

On Thursday 25 May 2017, ultra-conservative activists and policy-makers will come together in Budapest, Hungary for the 11th international World Congress of Families (WCF) under the title “Building Family-Friendly Nations: Making Families Great Again”.

As the biggest annual meeting of the right, the organizers have stated their hopes that this year’s WCF will “help launch a new global pro-family alliance of countries dedicated to defending marriage, the family and the sanctity of human life.”

Throughout the four days (25-28 May) delegates from the clergy, civil society, the business world, and politics will build relationships and learn from each other’s tactics for achieving regressive change – all under the auspices of the Prime Minister of Hungary.

While extremely troubling, the WCF is not an exceptional event. In fact, it can be seen as an archetypal example of much broader trends. A new report released this week, documents the rise in numbers, increased coordination, and increasingly strategic approaches of anti-rights actors operating in international spaces, and the significant impact they have made so far.

Behind the Research

In 2016 a group of organizations and activists, including AWID, launched a collaborative project called the Observatory on the Universality of Rights – OURs, for short.

The project stemmed in part from a strategy meeting on religious fundamentalisms held by AWID in 2013, during which a number of participants raised concerns about the effects of ultra-conservative groups on our human rights, and shared the work they were doing already to resist.

A clear trend was visible: These anti-rights actors, both state and non-state, were working more concertedly than ever to undermine a core concept of human rights: their universality.

Universality is a cornerstone of international human rights law. It encapsulates that we are all equally entitled to our human rights simply by being human – whatever our nationality, place of residence, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, language, sexuality, or any other status.

The OURs initiative decided to undertake a comprehensive study of the forces working to undermine universality, the impact they have had so far, and ultimately what this might mean for people’s lives.

What did we find?

1. A large and complex anti-rights lobby

The research revealed an unprecedented level of engagement by anti-rights actors in international human rights spaces today. Following an initial foray in the UN arena during the Beijing and Cairo conferences in the 1990s, these ultra-conservative actors have been increasingly targeting the international policy arena.

One of the most notable trends found is the tendency towards strategic alliances. The report maps a complex and evolving anti-rights lobby at the UN, with older forms of affiliation, based on religion or institution, giving way to pragmatic organizing according to shared goals.

2. An evolving repertoire of strategies

A striking finding of the research is that ultra-conservative actors – despite all their rigidity when it comes to worldview – very much move with the times when it comes to strategy.

Where anti-rights actors may have previously been explicit in their religious or “moral” motivations, they now often appeal to supposedly intellectual or “social science” arguments. What is more, when certain human rights bodies prove difficult to infiltrate or influence, anti-rights groups find new points of entry.

Across all the strategies of these actors, some key trends are visible:

Learning from the organizing strategies of feminists and other progressives.
Adapting successful national-level tactics for the international sphere.
Moving from an emphasis on symbolic protest against the human rights system, to becoming subversive system “insiders”.

3. Expert “double-speak”

The report paints a picture of the myriad creative discourses anti-rights actors use to undermine the universality of rights. In several cases, these actors take a legitimate concern or struggle and appropriate it for their agenda.

A good example is the way that anti-imperialist discourse is used by both ultra-conservative states and civil society organizations. This narrative revolves around the idea that national governments are being unjustly targeted by UN bodies, or by other states acting through the UN.

Of course, there is much to be said about the instances in which national governments are bullied by other states and by international institutions.

However, we documented the ways this discourse is co-opted to cast a powerful institution – the state – as the victim, in order to justify national exceptions to universal human rights standards. Tellingly, many of those who employ this discourse are in fact global North-based organizations.

Another striking finding is the trend towards co-opting the very language of human rights, women’s rights, and even the notion of “universal” itself.

To give just one example, conservative players have attempted to construct a new category of “parental rights”, which has no support in existing human rights standards.

While sounding something like a genuine area of human rights, this dangerous framework in fact works to twist the rights protections children have, as articulated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to support the rights of parents to control their children and limit their rights and autonomy.

4. The impact on our rights is grave… but there is hope

Anti-rights actors have already had a substantive impact on our human rights framework, especially rights related to gender and sexuality.

Take the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), for example. Precisely when addressing women’s human rights is of urgent importance, the very space dedicated to this has become extremely harder and harder to make advances in. Our energy is taken up trying to hold the ground against conservative backlash – sometimes even on agreements made 20 years ago!

At the Human Rights Council (HRC), in between progressive gains, we have increasingly witnessed ultra-conservative states aggressively negotiating out positive language and introducing hostile amendments to resolutions.

In a whole range of spaces beyond these two examples, the presence of regressive actors is being keenly felt. However, we should not see this as a done deal.

First of all, we should remember that these advances have, at least in part, been a response to the gains of feminism and other progressive movements – a backlash that indicates the extent of our power.

We can also take courage from the many times when anti-rights actors’ attempts were unsuccessful due to the strong efforts of progressive activists.

From the limited amount of regressive language conservative actors managed to insert into Agenda 2030, to the repeated fruitless attempts to block the new mandate of the Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, to the strong provisions on sexual and reproductive rights and health in the 2016 HRC resolution on discrimination against women – these regressive agendas can and will be thwarted.

Understanding the attacks, to strengthen our rights

This research was founded on the belief that to counter the advance of our “opponents” in human rights spaces we must have an intimate knowledge of the ways they operate. As the first report to come out of OURs, we have focussed most of our attention on the threat itself.

One might wonder if this detailed look at anti-rights efforts risks over-emphasis on the negative aspects of the picture. Our hope is that this first report will act as a strong foundation for building awareness and action in this area. As we go on, the plan is to build upon these findings, including by documenting the important gains feminists and other progressive actors have made in recent years.

There are many progressive activists doing remarkable and sustained work on our rights related to gender and sexuality – we are many, and we are strong. Our hope for this research is that it will provide the knowledge to make our collective struggle more strategic, more proactive, and ultimately more effective.

Let’s work together to defend the universality of rights!

Add your voice and apply to become an institutional member. Get in touch to learn more

Seventeen Years of Tracking the World Congress of Families

Today, the World Congress of Families is one of the major driving forces behind the U.S. Religious Right’s global export of homophobia and sexism.

The Political Research Association first reported on the World Congress of Families (WCF) in 2000, noting its role within the coalition of Christian Right groups that was beginning to emerge as a well-organized and influential force at the United Nations. Writing for The Public Eye, Jennifer Butler observed that the Christian Right had “discovered the power of organizing in the international arena,” and was working to “delay and where possible derail progressive change that might be obtained through UN conferences and treaties.”

In the years following the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo and the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing—the outcomes of which were hailed by progressive feminists as major victories for gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights—Butler reported that “Conservative Catholics, Mormons, Conservative Evangelicals and to a much smaller degree, Muslims and Jews, are developing institutional structures, political rhetoric and mobilized networks to bring their ‘family values’ message to the UN and the world.” She credited WCF with playing a key role in solidifying the group’s platform and collaboration.

Today, WCF is one of the major driving forces behind the U.S. Religious Right’s global export of homophobia and sexism. From its headquarters in Rockford, Illinois, WCF pursues an international anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ agenda, seeking to promote conservative ideologies that dictate who has rights as “family,” and who doesn’t. Through WCF’s advocacy and strategic support, these ideologies are increasingly being codified into regressive laws and policies all around the world, from the United Nations to the Kremlin.

In the lead up to WCF’s 2015 gathering in Salt Lake City, Utah, PRA co-produced an overview of the group and its key affiliates, along with a glossary of key terms used by the organization’s network of Religious Right accomplices to further thwart pro-LGBTQ and women’s rights initiatives

Read the full article from Political Research Associates.

Female clerics declare fatwa on child marriage in Indonesia

Female clerics on Thursday issued an unprecedented fatwa against child marriage in Indonesia in a bid to stop young girls becoming brides in the world’s most populous Muslim country.

The fatwa – which is influential among Muslims but not legally binding – came at the end of an extraordinary three-day conference of female Islamic clerics: a rare example of women assuming a lead role in religious affairs in this mostly-Muslim country.

“Maternal mortality is very high in Indonesia. We – as female clerics – can play a role on the issue of child marriage,” conference organiser Ninik Rahayu told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Female clerics know the issues and obstacles women face, we can take action and not just wait for the government to protect these children,” she said by phone from Cirebon in the West Java province, where the congress was held.

Indonesia has one of the worst records for under-age marriage – its high number of child brides puts it among the top 10 countries worldwide – and it is common for girls to marry before they turn 18.

Thursday’s fatwa, or religious edict, called underage marriage “harmful” and said its prevention was mandatory.

Read the full story from the Thomas Reuters Foundation.

Holding the Line: Reflections from the 61st Commission on the Status of Women

Given the diversity of state positions and civil society organizations present at the CSW in the current era, we always anticipate that the CSW will be a challenging space in which to defend or advance the rights of lesbian, bisexual, trans and intersex persons (LBTI).

By Erin Aylward

While this year’s CSW saw some important strategies and successes in holding the line, we also witnessed some concerning developments that underscore the very real need for human rights organizations to prevent backsliding on key issues and strategies for NGO-engagement.

Let’s start with the Agreed Conclusions: the “meat and potatoes” of each year’s CSW. Because the Agreed Conclusions are agreed upon by consensus, LBTI rights have yet to ever be explicitly mentioned or acknowledged in this outcome document, and we do not anticipate that this will happen anytime soon. From the perspective of organizations focused on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) issues, then, “success” during the CSW political negotiations is often framed in two ways:

fighting off hostile language – often, though not exclusively put forward by the Russian Federation – on the family, traditional values, and state sovereignty, and
fighting for broad, inclusive language that could be interpreted to include SOGIESC issues, even if they are not explicitly mentioned.

According to these metrics, the final version of the Agreed Conclusions can largely be considered a success.

However, the author is alarmed by three main anti-rights trends at the CSW: pink-washing at the CSW, the shrinking space for civil society actors and the rise of the religious right within the CSW.

Read the full article from ARC International.

Sri Lankan Muslim Clerics Say Women Are Not Equal To Men, Defend Marriage Before Puberty

In an alarming submission made to several parliamentarians and other conservative groups with regard to proposed amendments to the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act, the All Ceylon Jamiyathul Ulama (ACJU) has said that they agree with the Hadith “No people will ever prosper who appoint a woman in charge of their affairs” and therefore a woman isn’t worthy of being appointed a Qazi (judge).

The ACJU is the main body of theologians of Muslims in Sri Lanka. In a brief document dated March 2017 of which the Colombo Telegraph possesses a copy, the clerics have said that therefore they oppose the appointing of female judges (Qazis).

The Hadiths, which was compiled at least 230 years after the death of the Prophet quotes Muhammad the Prophet of Islam as making the statement, the veracity of which has been questioned throughout the Islamic intellectual tradition.

The submission also includes the fact of the marriage of the Prophet to Aisha, of which the contract of marriage was said to have taken place when she was 6 years of age.

It uses the story as a justification for the marriage of girls who have not attained puberty.

Again quoting a Hadith the document says “A father giving in marriage his daughter before attaining puberty is possible and this is the evidence that Abu Bakr (RA) gave Aisha (RA) on marriage to the Prophet (PBUH) when she was 6”.

However, the narration is also a construct of later day scholars although documented in Bukhari, one of the most voluminous of the compilers and considered to be a Sahih (truthful) Hadith.

There has been no other evidence to the effect that Aisha was in fact 6 and that the marriage was consummated when she was 9 except for Hadith, which according to academics was compilation though hearsay. Muhammad is said to have been 53 years at the time.

The ACJU accordingly has made a sweeping conclusion saying they are against any female judge sitting in as a Qazi and that her edicts will be not binding as per the Sharia and will therefore be null and void. Instead the ACJU has sought to confine the female in a consultative capacity.

Adding insult to injury, the ACJU has justified its view using the same justification of Saudi Arabia- saying “It is to protect the rights, honour and modesty of women”.

The head cleric of the ACJU Mufthi Rizwe was yesterday on record that the MMDA is “perfect in the present state”.

Several organizations including Muslim led civil society groups and the media have highlighted and documented many issues of rural Muslim women suffering as a result of the MMDA, including many instances of child marriage.

Read the full article from the Colombo Telegraph.